Page 67 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Yes! Exactly!”

“I’ll tell you why not—because the perfect job doesn’t exist. You can’t reject something because it’s not perfect. Haven’t you ever heard that the perfect is the enemy of the good?”

“I hate that phrase.”

“Of course you hate that phrase. You’re on the side of perfect. You think that should be everyone’s goal.”

“Everyone should be on the side of perfect; otherwise you’re settling. And yes, it’s a worthy goal.”

“Maybe you live in a world where the jobs are perfect, Hugo, and the homes are perfect and the data model is perfect and all the numbers line up, but I don’t live in that world. I don’t ever want to live in that world.”

He furrows his brow. I can see it’s finally sinking in. “You looked at the risk and you decided to manage it.”

“Yeah, and I get that you were trying to help, but you cost me that job and a bunch of other ones, too.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Of course you would have investigated it. You know your own business. You’re an accomplished professional who knows how to navigate this world.”

I gaze out the window, grateful for this. Unsure what to do with it.

“I’m working on a way to fix it. I’ll reach out to my poker club. It’s an amazing network—”

“No! You have to let me manage this on my own. I have my own network. I just don’t understand—why not warn me?”

“If I had thought about it for more than two seconds or used my frontal lobe instead of my lizard brain, I would’ve.”

I try not to think too hard about the idea that I bring out his lizard brain. I resist seeing it as exciting or tantalizing. We’re doing this one errand and it’s over.

I grab a fizzy water from the beverage area, and pop the cap, replaying the things my therapists have told me about rigid, perfectionistic, emotionally unavailable men. I also flash on our little incident in the elevator where he was suddenly scrawling math formulas, seconds after we screwed.

“This had better be a great fucking gift.”

He gives me one of his intense Hugo looks, gray eyes focused fiercely on me. “You have no idea.”

I sniff like I’m so above it all, but I’m so not. I’m as infatuated as I’ve ever been, and I’m sinking deeper into this illusion that he could feel the same way. And now I’m in this limo with him, and he’s going to turn his amazing gift-giving powers on me. He’s been thinking about me, and he chose the ultimate perfect gift for me. He spotted itlong ago! After so many years of dreaming it, it’s actually coming true!

Hugo is going to give me the perfect gift.

I turn away from him like I’m studying the buildings along the Hudson River—that’s how hard I’m grinning.

Thisis how I protect my heart?Thisis my strategy?

I had a poster of Zac Hanson from the Hanson Brothers on my bedroom wall when I was twelve. Zac was dreamy, and I sometimes took the poster down and draped it over myself and pretended Zac was kissing me.

This fakery that I’m doing right now, going through these motions as though Hugo is my boyfriend or something, letting him get me his gift and all that, is a dangerous version of the Zac Hanson poster.

The devil on my shoulder is like, “Is it so bad to let him give you a magical gift? And hey, why not grab a bite after? You have to eat sometime!”

The angel on my shoulder is like, “Have fun getting your heart stabbed repeatedly in the basement or getting turned into a human centipede! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Hugo

I helpher from the car. Our hands touch. Our eyes lock. Electricity sizzles between us.

And as soon as she’s on the sidewalk, she shoves her hands into her pockets, as if to ward off our connection.

I need to repair this somehow, to make up for the letter. I’m used to calming chaos, managing household disasters of every kind. I was doing it from a very early age.

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